


Hammer and Stone

by acornsandravens



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Comfort Sex, Complete, F/M, Magic, One Shot, Outdoor Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 10:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acornsandravens/pseuds/acornsandravens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arya and Gendry have a moment at the ruins of Winterfell, with unforeseen results. Basically, accidental pagan rituals.</p><p>"It felt a bit like being crushed, loving someone."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hammer and Stone

  **"During an outdoor rite, have sex standing up against an old sacred tree so the energy you and your lover build up is sent forth up the trunk of the tree at the point of climax – to the otherworld, to the gods."**

 

**Sarah Anne Lawless, _Sex Magic in Traditional Witchcraft,_ sarahannelawless.com**

 

Arya used her teeth to pull off her worn glove and gently ran her fingers across the rugged wooden face. The sap had dried and frozen into black streaks and though spring was said to be returning there was no spring in its branches, nor the tiny start of red buds.

It was as white and barren as the snow under her feet, and Arya fought back a pang of grief. She’d prayed beneath this tree with her father and climbed into the embrace of its boughs with her brothers. It saddened her that even the heart tree had not survived the sacking of her home and the harsh winter that had savaged the land. “It’s dying,” she said quietly, pressing her forehead against its trunk and blinking back a stubborn tear of her own.

The North was dead, and she was the only witness that would remain here once the heart tree returned to the soil of the godswood. In a few decades there would be nothing left of Winterfell but scattered stones and ruins rendered shapeless by the weather, lost beneath blankets of moss. “How can you tell?” Gendry asked curiously, reaching out a bare hand to touch the dried sap that had pooled like old blood at the roots.

“Because everything else here is dead too.” she said despairingly. “It’s not waking like the other trees, see? They’ve got the starts of buds in the places where the sun reaches strongest, and if I broke one of their branches the sap would run like water.”

Tenderly, he reached up above their heads and grabbed a brittle twig. It crumbled to powder at his touch, white like ash.

Arya turned away to hide her face, and she wasn’t sure who she was hiding from-- the tree with its dead, unseeing eyes or Gendry with his knowing, sympathetic look. “We could bring it water. Or bury fish heads at its roots, like they do for gardens.” he suggested, but he was no farmer and Arya didn’t think with all the fresh snowmelt that it had needed water.

She thought this particular tree might have had its fill of heads, too.

“I don’t think it matters,” she sighed. “It’s not quite like a normal tree. Heart trees are special, sacred. There is more to it dying than lack of water.” she told him, resting her palm against its worn wooden cheek.

She’d known she’d had to see what was left at Winterfell for herself, but now she wondered if it had been a mistake to come here. She’d had enough heartache, and seeing that there was nothing left to rebuild was almost too much to bear after coming all this way and nursing a feeble hope that someday walls might rise again in the North. There was still enough stone left to salvage, but all the people had gone and she and Gendry couldn’t do it alone. What was the point of a castle with no one in it? They hadn’t seen a soul since before they’d skirted Castle Cerwyn and its Bolton banners.

There had been a few tattered pink banners left at the ruins of Winterfell, too, faded by the winter to dingy bloodstained white, and she had torn them from their hangings and burned them. Someone had rebuilt a roof and a gate- Bolton, she thought, seething- but the wind had blown the gate clean off its hinges and the weight of the snows had taken down the hastily built repairs.

Arya felt a sense of fierce pride that no one had dared to hold even an undefended ruin against the winter when it had come at last.

If Winterfell was to die, she thought, let it die like the heart tree. Let its corpse be taken by lichen and rot, like the bodies of her ancestors, who still lay beneath in the crypts if the bloody Boltons hadn’t robbed their tombs. It was no matter if they had, she thought furiously. The Starks before her were long dead and their peace would not be disturbed by the likes of Boltons, not if she had hands to gather their bones and the strength to wield a sword.

“Isn’t there a… a… priest of some sort?” Gendry asked hopefully, and Arya shook her head.

“No. The old gods have no one but the wind to speak for them.” Though she knew, shamefully, that if there had been a Septon within a hundred leagues of here she would have begged their help and risked offending the gods if it would save _this_ tree.

“Then we’ll have to carve a new face, and make a new heart tree.” he insisted, and she had to smile at his commitment to gods he had never served. To her, she thought, her heart stuttering in her chest at the way he looked at her when he said it, like she was _his_ last tree. “I’m not nearly as good with a chisel as I am with a hammer, but I reckon I can manage two eyes and a mouth. And you’re fair with a blade. You can do the nose.” he told her, gently grabbing hold of her heavy fur cloak and pulling her closer.

“The nose? That’s the hardest bit.” she complained as his fingertip brushed the tip of hers, pinkened by the chill air and half numb. He gently traced the bridge upwards until he came to her eyes, and her lashes fluttered closed when he wiped away a cold tear caught in them.

“You’ll make it perfect,” he told her. “You can model it after mine.”

She snorted. “That ugly thing? I don’t want to kill another weirwood by giving it your likeness, Gendry. They’re scarce enough.”

“I don’t recall you having a problem with my nose before,” he teased, nuzzling it against her neck, his breath sending a shiver down her spine in spite of its warmth, warmth that settled in the place between her legs he was so good at waking with a word, a look, a touch.

In spite of the teasing and the feel of his hands roaming over her Arya sobered. They might have married in front of this tree, in another life. But he’d been born a bastard half a continent away and here and now there was no cloak for him to throw over her shoulders, no witnesses save the crows and the weirwoods. No Starks left to care who it was she wed, and, she thought wryly, no maiden for the bedding.

The first time they’d lain together he’d asked her, hesitantly, if she wanted to find a septon in the morning. He knew she’d never wanted to be anyone’s wife, not in the fashion she’d been born for; not to give some lordling heirs and political alliances, but he’d asked anyway because he was Gendry and it was the honorable thing to do.

“We haven’t the spare silver,” she’d told him, lying with her head upon his chest. “And I don’t care about my virtue, and neither does anyone else so we might as well save our coin.” It wouldn’t have mattered—there wasn’t a septon to be found north of the Trident and the matter had dropped, though she’d thought about it some nights, while he slept next to her with one hand holding her possessively and the other on the hilt of his sword.

She’d never thought to be any man’s wife, but if ever she was to swear a vow she would do it here, with him, and let all the gods in the world see her pledge her troth. _Let them see it, then_ , she decided _, if these eyes still see_.

When she reached for him he answered, and his lips were the only home she needed now, the insistent pressure of his mouth against hers a reassurance that no matter what happened she would always have this _one thing_ , and let the Seven, the Red God, the Many-Faced God and even these old gods help whoever tried to take it from her.

“If you told me you hated the stars I’d put them out for you,” she promised while he sucked at her neck and undid the laces of her shirt. “I’d fight a hundred dragons. I’d empty the ocean by bucket.” She gasped against his lips.“I—I don’t want a castle. I don’t _need_ a castle. Just you. I love you,” she told him for the thousandth time, the words spilling out easily with practice and conviction. “And I’m not going to leave you. I should have let you find that septon when you asked me if—“

“I love _you_ ,” Gendry interrupted. He always said it seriously, like he was swearing it with a sword held on him, his lips moving against her ear with his raspy voiced proclamation. She felt it clear to her toes, to the tips of her cold fingers and with every part of her that was or ever would be. “And we don’t need a septon or a witness or anyone else for us to know it’s the truth.”

“I know we don’t, but I thought you might like it. You’re right, it doesn’t matter. I’ll love you, and I-I’ll stay with you and I’ll be good to you, no matter what happens.” she rattled on, unable to stop herself.  
“I want you to know it. In case we-- if we don’t--” Arya couldn’t finish. She didn’t want to, wasn’t sure why she was afraid. It was only that everything else she’d ever known was dead around her, and why should it be any different now, with him?

Gendry looked down at her in concern. She knew her eyes were probably wet and she fought not to blink so the tears wouldn’t fall.

It felt a bit like being crushed, loving someone.

He cupped her cheek and for the first time in her life she felt hopelessly fragile. “We’re not going to die, Arya.” he told her fiercely, his conviction admirable and his lying almost good enough to make her believe him. “Trust me.” Gendry demanded, his kiss a bit desperate, like he might convince her with his lips alone. She wondered if he needed convincing too, from the urgent way he held her.

“I always have.” she told him, clinging tightly to him.

Winterfell would always matter. She would never forget her home or her family-- couldn’t, no matter how many oceans she put between them or how hard she tried. No matter how much remembering hurt, _she would._ But what mattered most at that moment of clarity was the two of them. They were alive, and they were together, and someday Starks would rule this place again. She trusted him, and he said they weren’t going to die.

They were going to rise.

He was gentle and urgent with his kisses, with his hands when he helped her pull off her breeches. She almost wished for the simplicity of a skirt in their place as she was freezing and broke out in goose bumps instantly, shivering while he worked loose the knot in his laces.

“Hurry. It’s cold,” she complained. Even shivering she couldn’t stop the thrill of anticipation that went through her as she watched him, intent on his task until her hand slid next to his. He seemed suddenly to have trouble focusing when she wrapped her fingers around his length and impatiently shoved aside his smallclothes. They’d done this plenty of times before, but it was a different sort of need, now.

He lifted her easily, his strong arms bracing her against the tree behind them. Bitter air rushed over her bare skin until he stepped closer and the warm fur lining of his cloak covered her as he found her lips again with his. Pinned to the tree she was completely at his mercy, but she didn’t feel vulnerable, not with Gendry. She _feels_ his warm skin under her hand and rough bark under the other, her fingers scrabbling for purchase when he slides inside of her.

It was quick and cold after that. His breath came in halted, short bursts against her neck, heating her like a flame. She threw her head back and let him taste her, wishing his lips were on hers or that they could be more than one place at a time.

Arya locked her legs tight around his waist, pushing against him when he moved inside of her and in turn he shoved her back against the trunk of the tree, one hand gripping her hip tight for leverage. It was desperate, clawing, fierce, and yet exquisite and tender all at once. She couldn’t get close enough to him, couldn’t have him deep enough inside of her. Her unsteady breaths fogged the air and froze in the fur around the hood of Gendry’s cloak but she felt hot as fire, like something molten was in her veins, a dizzying, disorienting whirl that made her squeeze her eyes closed to stop the spinning.

It was taking over, flowing through her, and she felt power curling upwards and into her like smoke to the air. Every one of her senses multiplied and expanded infinitesimally as it built inside of her. She could smell the dirt beneath her, the snow, the faint iron of spilled blood, the bitterness of burnt wood and frozen granite; leaves budding, growing, dying, and decaying for a thousand years. The quiet sound of wind rustling the weirwood branches and crows shrieking in the distance became a thundering crescendo that crashed over her at the same moment she peaked, and when it shattered her eyes flew open with some hazy, half thought idea that she wanted to see his face.

Arya only saw light pouring down all around them and Gendry’s eyes locked with hers, blue on grey like the stone of the ruins around them where it met the sky.

She gasped his name against the heat of his lips and the taste of eternity, mortality, renewal. Vaguely, as though from a world away, she felt his arms tremble where they held her and he shuddered against her, the harsh sounds of his breath the only noise, now, in a world that had gone silent.

They stayed like that for a moment and then slowly, one of her feet touched the ground, heavily tangled with the roots of the weirwoods. Her body slid down the tree behind her as he released her with a shaky sigh and a last sweet kiss. His absence was acute. Without the heat of his body and the warmth of his fur cloak the cold air crept back against her skin and chilled the wetness on her thighs, and she dressed quickly to ward it away.

It took them a while to find the entrance to the crypts buried beneath a layer of snow and hidden by a collection of debris, but they dug it out and in spite of the scattered bones and skulls the crypts were quiet, dry, and warmer than any place they’d slept in months. They built a small fire and spread their sleeping furs between two pillars, and that night they slept with the stony faces of Arya’s ancestors watching over them, wrapped in each other’s arms. Above them it was still and pure, and in the moonlight the destruction was almost pristine. Peaceful.

 And beneath the snow, life was stirring.

 “We can go wherever you want,” he’d told her, their last night at the crypts beneath Winterfell. “We can turn back, go south. To the Vale or the Riverlands or bloody Dorne, I don’t care where. We can go to White Harbor and get passage to Essos, if you’d rather live there.”

In the end they’d gone north, as quickly as possible; following the retreating winter as the snows melted. When they reached the wall at long last the ice was weeping and the weak sunlight glittered off the giant structure like it was cut crystal. Gendry had to help her off her horse, but he’d been right, they’d made it all the same, no matter how much he’d fretted about travelling after she’d started being sick in the mornings.

Their daughter was born at Castle Black on a cold, clear spring day while the sun was high in the sky. After several hours of pain and struggle she finally lay on her mother’s chest, small, strong, and gasping for her first breath.

And though none of them knew it, at that exact moment, a number of leagues to the south, a stubborn, gnarled old tree bled red, and the first of its five-pointed leaves began to unfurl. 


End file.
